West Perth-based DataMotion Asia Pacific is facing a board spill from one of its major shareholders that has links with Perth businessman Robert Roget.
West Perth-based DataMotion Asia Pacific is facing a board spill from one of its major shareholders that has links with Perth businessman Robert Roget.
Mr Roget, on behalf of 19.3 per cent shareholder Intercorp, has called for the removal of managing director Ronald Moir and chief financial officer Mark Popham from the board of the technology security company.
In their place, Intercorp has nominated Lumacom non-executive chairman Michael Robson and lawyer Patrick Corr.
The shareholder requested an extraordinary meeting, which will be held in Perth next month.
In a letter to shareholders, Mr Moir said he believed the requisition came about after Intercorp met strong opposition from the board about a proposed acquisition of Retail Information Systems by DataMotion.
DataMotion director, and Intercorp representative John Wellisch, had proposed the acquisition ten hours before a DataMotion board meeting in December.
"To this day and despite repeated requests, neither Mr Wellisch nor Intercorp have been able to provide any sound commercial reasons as to why the RIS transaction is in the best interests of DataMotion," Mr Moir said.
He added that since January 19, Intercorp had launched a legal campaign against him that included accusation of misinforming the market, breach of directors duties and insider trading.
Mr Moir says the allegations are baseless.
He added the principal areas of concern are that the transaction values RIS at $39.8 million, higher than the $21.5 million value that was passed down on the entity in August last year.
Another is that RIS incurred a loss of $1 million for the six months to the end of September 2009, and that the company's viability rests on arrangements with Medicare, which DataMotion said is at least seven months behind schedule.
In a statement, Intercorp said is had "lost faith" in the ability of Messrs Moir and Popham to rectify the current financial position of DataMotion.
It also drew comparisons between the directors' remuneration of between $2 million and $2.7 million from 2002 to 2009, and DataMotion's accumulated losses of $20.4 million during that time.
Intercorp also said that DataMotion has insufficient funds to pay for directors' salaries and working capital, and that the company has not spend money on research and development in the past six months, thereby indicating there was no new product to "change the fortune" of DataMotion.
"Intercorp has lost confidence in Mr Moir and Mr Popham and Intercorp believes [DataMotion] can achieve significantly better results for all shareholders with the right leadership," it said.
